geometric mountain; Arabs expecting money when they should come leaping
down, whole or in pieces. And the khaki uniforms of British soldiers
mounting or descending for their own stolid amusement, made the Pyramid
itself seem to be writhing, so like was the colour of the cloth to that
of the stone. No use being angry because the monument was crawling with
Tommies! The Pyramids were as much theirs as ours. And probably
Napoleon's soldiers spent their moonlit evenings in the same way; a
thought which somehow made the thing seem less intolerable.

We climbed to the vast platform of the Ghizeh Pyramids, and then
plunged into the billows of the desert, in quest of the Sphinx. Sir
Marcus was entitled to call himself the pioneer, but we needed no one
to show us the way. It was but too clearly indicated by the bands of
pilgrims, going or returning. And among the latter were those whom
Monny callously referred to as "poor Lord Ernest's crowd." Miss
Hassett-Bean and the Biddell girls made us linger, with sand trickling
over the tops of our shoes, while they poured into our ears their
impressions of the Sphinx. Miss H. B. thought that She (with a capital
S) was a combination of Goddess, Prophetess, and Mystery. Enid thought
she was like an Irish washerwoman making a face; and Elaine said she
was the image of their bulldog at home. Monny (after a sandy
introduction) listened to these verbal vandalisms in horrified silence.
I could see that she was exerting herself, for my sake, to be civil to
my charges (who were more interested in her than they had been in the
Sphinx), and that, if she could have done so without hurting their
feelings, she would have struck them dead. But my fears that their
mental suggestions might obsess her were baseless. She did not speak
when the golden billows parted to give us a first vision of the great
Mystery of the Desert. I had led Monny by a roundabout way, and instead
of seeing the Sphinx from the back, we came upon her face to face, as